NCPA Events Video Clips

Philip Howard

Senior Corporate Advisor and Strategist, Covington & Burling

TOPIC: His new book, "The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom."

See-saws are disappearing across America. Labels warn that coffee is hot. Good teachers, fed up, quit. You'd have to be a fool to say what you really want.

Why can't Americans just do what makes sense?

According to best-selling author and lawyer, Philip K. Howard, the quest for individual fairness has had an unintended consequence: America so proud of its rule of law, no longer provides the legal rulings to defend rational behavior. In his recently published book, The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom, Howard reveals how the pursuit of fairness in protecting the rights of individuals has created a system where no one can make judgments for the common good.

Mr. Howard will be speaking about his new book, The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom, which demonstrates how our pursuit of individual rights has created a system where no one can make judgments for fear of ending up in court. With vivid examples - often infuriating, often funny - Howard explains how politically correct reforms have become the enemy of freedom. And he exposes how our emphasis on "individual rights" rewards self-interested individuals at the expense of the rest of society and our common institutions.

Howard is chairman of a leading civic group in New York and vice chairman of an international law firm. He has advised leaders of both parties on regulatory reform, including Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Bob Dole, Gov. Zell Miller, Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Lawton Childs in Florida.

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a public policy research institute founded in 1983 and internationally known for its studies on public policy issues. The NCPA is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an office in Washington, D.C.

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